GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF CASSIA FISTULA L. SEEDLINGS AS AFFECTED BY FORMULATED MICROBIAL INOCULANT

Microbial inoculant as effective microorganisms (EM) was applied to Cassia fistula to study its influence on growth and development of seedlings. EM solution at different concentrations (0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, 5 and 10%) were added in polybags a week before and after sowing seeds. Both germination and physical growth parameters of seedlings were found significantly higher in the treatment compared to control. Maximum growth was found at 2% EM solution. There was a higher amount of pigments in leaves of the treated seedlings. Cassia fistula L. (Family: Leguminosae) locally known as 'Sonalu' is a medium-sized, multipurpose, deciduous tree species, which can grow on poor shallow to fairly good soil and in a wide range of temperature and rainfall conditions (Luna 1996). It is indigenous to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal and South India. This species has been introduced in different plantation programs like, agroforestry, community forestry, social forestry, village and farm forestry in different parts of Bangladesh. To fulfill the demand in these plantation programs many organizations are producing C. fistula seedlings in the nurseries but the initial growth potentiality under the influence of microbial inoculants like "Effective Microorganisms" or EM has not been studied so far. The microbial inoculant used in this study, with a commercial name as EM, was developed at the University of Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan, in the early 1980's (Kyan et al. 1999). The main components comprising EM are lactic acid bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, beneficial fungi, yeast, ray fungi and others. The density of most of the above mentioned microbes are in the range of 10 to 10 cells per ml (Xu 2000). EM has been used with considerable success to improve soil quality and growth, yield and quality of crops, particularly in natural and organic farming systems (Xu 2000). The objective of this study was to observe the effectiveness of different concentrations of EM inoculants on germination and growth of C. fistula seedlings. The experiment was carried out in the nursery of the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh. The seeds of C. fistula were collected from the seed orchard division of Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI). The soils, collected from the degraded hills of the University Campus was sieved (< 3mm) and mixed with decomposed cowdung in a ratio of 3 : 1. The brown hill soils are sandy loam to sandy clay loam, moderately to strongly acidic (pH <5.5), organic matter < 2.0%, CEC < 10 me/100g, BSP < 40% (Osman et al. 2001). Polybags of 15 × 10 cm size were filled with soil mixture and a 1 cm layer of coir was on top to reduce evaporation and to supply a source of organic matter. There were seven treatments including control, and there were three replications for each treatment while in a replication there were 20 polybags. Seeds sown in polybag soil without EM but with water only was considered as control. In the treatment polybag soils 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, 5 and 10% of EM solution